Red Dress
by sharmini
Summary: A continuation from the With A Little Help From My Friends AU. Lance and Elena in a relationship. Elena's POV, mostly.


_**Merlin belongs to BBC...and all of us who love it to bits. **_

_**Note continued at the end of the story. **_

* * *

Lance slides a key across the table towards Elena. She looks at the key and frowns.

He tells her he does not like her present living arrangement (a room above a bakery, great smell, awful neighbours, especially the ones he seen leering at her) and that he was offering her a room in his flat.  
She must have looked as startled as she felt because a look of pure horror flickered through his expression as he realizes what it must look like; him giving her key to his flat and all that. It was a perfectly innocent gesture, but she still was sort of worried.  
He then explains, pained expressions, shrugs and sheepish, awkward pauses (very endearing, she saw) that this was no proposition and she was free to say no, though he did manage to convey that it would displease him and the rest of them if she did say no (because they would then start making other arrangement, anything to get her away from that awful room). This was more of a gesture...a friend helping another.  
She picks up the key and smiles.

* * *

They share a pot of coffee in the mornings. He makes them and tells her about the variety of blends, explains tastes and origins.

She thinks the coffee is alright.

It's being with him that makes her the happiest every morning .

* * *

They finish a dozen orange poppy-seed cupcakes between them one Sunday afternoon.

She tells him about her foster parents.

He tells her about Morgana.

He misses her, yes. Every single moment.

But he is here.

She was not sure what to make of that.

But she was glad he talked to her about his wife.

* * *

Elena was beat after finishing her shift, wanting nothing more than a hot bath and her oldest pair of pyjamas.

Lance opens the door before she does and looks at her, expectantly.

He has made roasted lamb with mint sauce and tiramisu for pudding.

Needless to say, she was impressed.

Before she realized something.

This is what constituted as a date.  
It was their first date.

Well, not quite first. They had lunch together sometimes; a sandwich or something quick when they both have the time to spare from work.

But this….

This had candles on the table. And fine china and silver cutlery.

She would have been an idiot if she refused.

* * *

A bath, a change into light cotton dress and Elena was marvelling Chilean red wine as he plates their main course.

Dinner was lovely.

What was even lovelier was when he kisses her, near the sink, as they were washing up.

It just happened. Tentatively at first, almost sweet in its hesitation and then, with an abandon that was almost primal with their need for each other.

* * *

They make love in her room.

She later wakes up and finds him sitting at the edge of her bed, head in his hands, shoulders slumped. She had expected this from him.

With a boldness that surprises her, she hugs him from the back, putting her head on his shoulder. Skin touched skin, warming her. She throws her quilt around them, trapping their warmth.

His hand finds hers, above his heart.

"You're a…" His whisper carried his emotions; regret uncertainty and anger directed at himself.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry…"  
"Why?"

"I didn't know…"

"And if you did?"

He was out of apologies.

"I'm happy it's you." She really was.

He smiles and leans his head into hers. They go back to bed. She holds him through the night.

* * *

In the morning, they wake up and he makes love to her again. They have breakfast together and then he has to leave for work. She kisses him at the door, wearing his shirt and an old sweat pants.

Times like this, it was easy to forget that he was once a married man. And still very much in love with his wife.

* * *

They never sleep in his room.

He does not ask her and neither does she.

It is an arrangement that works well for them.

* * *

To be honest, Elena was rather surprised at herself.

As well as all sorts of embarrassed. They were in a church after all, and her thoughts were less than…church-friendly.

They were in Bath Abbey, in the museum down in vault. Lance studies the placard of a stained glass displayed on a mounted table. He wears his tortoiseshell glasses (he needs them when he is reading) and looked every bit the hottest Art/History professor in the world. She wants to do things to him that would no doubt get them both arrested for public disturbance as well as blasphemy.

(If that happens, she would plead insanity. Her defense would be asking Lance to appear in court wearing his tortoise-shell glass. Then they would see who the real criminal is and provocateur.)

He catches her staring at him when he straightens up.

She was surprised and tries to look away.

But then he smiles, holds out his hand for her.

And apologizes for not paying enough attention to her.

She tells him it was no problem and asks him about the architecture of the Abbey. She really was interested.

He smiles and tells her all about the Abbey.

Just two regular people in a relationship out on a Sunday drive.

* * *

They find the pub after circling the little village twice.

But it was well worth it; the food was divine and the ambience warm.

The only thing off was Lance himself.

He seemed distracted.

Elena feels a heaviness in heart and tries to maintain her smile despite the shadow that loomed over them.

He was probably thinking of Morgana.

And, like all the times he does (and there had been a fair number of those), there was nothing she could do about it.

Perhaps he knew what he was doing.

Perhaps he did not.

It did not matter.

She had perfected the art of smiling through the ache in her heart.

And she wished she would stop being upset over a woman who is no longer…there.

* * *

Lance takes Elena's hand as they walk to his car parked outside the pub. The afternoon was beautiful; the right amount of warmth and chill in the air, the sky clear.

"Something wrong?" Elena ventures. She never asks him anything when he goes all quiet and contemplative. She does not want him to say something that would be a lie, just so that he could say the right thing or not hurt her.

"I wanted to ask you to marry me, back at the Abbey. It just…didn't feel right."

Her heart gives a lurch. Blood rushes to her head. She wonders if she was going to pass out.

"I'm sorry….I shouldn't have…This is stupid…"

"Yes."  
This time, her response stuns him.

"Yeah. It's stupid…" his voice trailed away as he turns his face from her.

"Lance," she steps up to him, reaching out and touching the side of his face. "Yes."

Then it dawns on him. Her answer was an affirmative to his unspoken proposal, not for what he thinks to be a foolish thing to do.

"I'm sorry…" He probably felt he had to apologize. "The parking lot of a pub is…"

"Perfect."

He smiles, sees assurance in her eyes.

He gives her a ring; white gold with a single sapphire.

Guinevere would later remark that it was the exact shade of Elena's eyes.

* * *

They do not drive home to the flat after lunch.

Lance drives past Gwaine's house and stops in front of a row of houses opposite the park. Gwaine's property was on the other side of the crescent flanking the park.

He kills the engine and looks at Elena.

"I was just looking at it…"

"Are you going to show me?"

His smile, as usual, lit up his face.

* * *

The house was bare; plastic sheeting hanging from the ceiling to indicate partitions, peeling and faded wallpaper.

He stands beside her in what could be a sitting room…

(done in red, with a plush carpet and sofa)

…not saying anything, probably wondering if he had gone too far in assuming that she would…

"I love it."

* * *

They sign the papers the next day.

(Gwaine lends her the money for her share of the property, interest free. She says no, insisting that she could get a bank loan, but Gwaine starts sulking, so she agrees.)

(Lance pays Gwaine back in eighteen months. She was not told. Gwaine channels her money into several investment portfolios. And made it out a gift for her, some years later.)

* * *

Everything was boxed up, ready to be moved out the next day. The last remaining room to be cleared was the store-room.

Merlin takes the clothes, to be dropped off at various charities. Gwaine heaves out the boxes of photographs, claiming that he had the space in his library for another hundred or so albums (an exaggeration, of course. The actual number of albums were less than thirty-five). Arthur and Guinevere take some knick knacks for their own living room. The rest were Lance's stuff.

* * *

The others were in the kitchen, getting drinks and snacks. Elena excuses herself; she wants to check on her phone, to see if the hospital had sent her any messages. There was none and she makes her way into the kitchen when she stops at the near empty store-room. The dressmaker's dummy stands a lone sentinel, surrounded by items designated for the bins; skiing gear that was beyond repair, a golf bag and a few stacks of magazines that were decades old.

A breeze from the overhead fan lifts one of the cloth covering the dress on the dummy. She goes and stands before it before pulling down the white cloth covering the dress.

It was a vintage dress in the deepest shade of plum, v-necked and below the breast a wide ribbon. The material was the softest silk and lightest chiffon. It was in her size, but she would have to pull up the hem a bit.

She could pair it…

She catches herself just then.

This dress was Morgana's.

She has no right claiming it for herself, she did not know her they way the others did.

And Lance…

He was moving on but that did not mean she could claim ownership on something that had belonged to Morgana and now to him.

And yet…

She removes the dress from the dummy. Folds it and takes it out of the room. tucks it into her bag that was ready to be taken to their new home tomorrow.

she feels as if she was doing something that was absolutely mad.

* * *

Arthur takes the three large portraits of Morgana, as well the wedding photo that had been in Lance's room.

They pretend not to notice Arthur nor Lance when Arthur walks out with the large frames.

* * *

That night, they sleep in Lance's room. which was empty save for the mattress and the bedding.

Their excuse was that the bed in Elena's room had been disassembled.

She could not help feeling as if she was intruding.

He holds her through the night.

* * *

Merlin proposes to Gwaine whilst they were on the train to Glasgow. Merlin was scheduled to lecture at the Art faculty at the uni there and asked Gwaine to come along. Apparently Gwaine had been reading something and when he looked up at smiled at Merlin, Merlin decided to ask him to marry him.

They announce that the civil ceremony was set a month from the weekend during Tuesday night dinner at their place.

* * *

The next day, Elena sends the dress to the laundry. She brings it home a few days later, tries it on, alters the hem and then hangs it in her wardrobe, covered in its dry cleaning bag.

* * *

Three days before the wedding, she buys a new dress for the wedding. A strapless number in gold with a matching fascinator.

* * *

They wake up late on the day of Merlin and Gwaine's wedding. Of course, the blame was fully on Gwaine, who insisted on a party the night before. a small dinner with family and friends, he had told them. But then Merlin's mum and Gwaine's mum had started with the childhood stories and the next thing they knew, Arthur declares it is five in the morning. when they get to their home, Lance says they had time for a nap.

They wake up forty minutes before Arthur was to pick them up.

It was a mad rush after that.

* * *

Lance gets ready first, looking splendid in his morning coat.

* * *

The yellow dress hangs beside the red dress.

* * *

Lance was adjusting his tie at the mirror in the hallway when Elena comes out of the room.

He sees her through the reflection in the mirror.

She stands at the doorway to their room, waiting for him to say something.

He turns around to face her.

"She loved the dress."

She decides that it was wrong, after all.

"I'll change into something else."

"Why?"

"It's…"  
"You look beautiful. Please don't change."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"

"It's just a dress, love…"

"Morgana's dress."  
"Which she would have worn to the wedding."

"I'm not…I'm not trying to…"

He comes to stand before her, takes her hands into his.

"I know. You are you. And Morgana is Morgana. I love her still and I could never believe that I could love you the way I do. The dress is a surprise, yes. But only because you look amazing in it. And because the hemline, love, is quite risqué for you."

She laughs.

He kisses her.

He tells her he loves her.

And that he is here.

This time, she understood what he meant.

* * *

They were married after nearly four years after Lance gives her the key to his flat.

He wears tails.

She wears an empire waist gown that emphasized her baby bump.

And the veil Morgana wore on her wedding day.

~~~THE END~~~

_**Right. This time, I need feedbacks to let me know if I had done this right or not. I don't want to mess up this pairing because of my own inadequate skills. **_

_**Let me know?**_

_**-Sharmini- **_


End file.
